Wilmington resident Lisa Sullivan watched the Deerfield River swell with a dreaded sense of déjà vu.
During 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene, Sullivan saw water that’s normally 2 feet deep rise to a record-shattering 25 feet — swallowing up nearly $300,000 in stock and surroundings from her business, Bartleby’s Books.
So when Monday’s current surged up a foot an hour, Sullivan and nearly a dozen friends moved everything from the store’s bottom shelves to the second floor.
“I’m concerned,” she said in an understatement.
By the close of business, the river had reached 16 feet — high enough to lap at the bottom of the nearby Route 9 bridge. But Sullivan — who lost another bookstore to a fire a decade ago — woke Tuesday to confirm she can survive hell or high water.
“We were lucky,” she wrote on her shop’s Facebook page, “but it was a close one.”
Residents are echoing that sentiment throughout Wilmington, which Irene hit with a near-record $13 million in damage (second only to Waterbury, which required $130 million to refurbish its waterlogged State Office Complex).
Wilmington’s nearby Dot’s Restaurant is usually closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. But it expects to reopen Thursday without the aftermath of Irene, which knocked the eatery off its foundation, leaving it precariously perched until completion of a two-year, $1 million restoration.
Across the street at the municipal office, staffers this week will continue to oversee their own building improvement project rather than having to start again from scratch.
“Water has filled all of the floodplains, some basements, a parking lot and parts of Route 100,” Town Manager Scott Tucker said. “But it doesn’t appear it’s going to be very costly. People were prepared because of Irene.”
Workers are set to finish the municipal office renovations this fall, when painters will restore exterior markings commemorating the floodwater heights of the 2011 storm and runner-up Great New England Hurricane of 1938.
Thankfully, residents say, they won’t have to add a new one.
“We feel a real sense of relief and gratitude,” bookstore manager Ana McDaniel said. “But it’s heartbreaking to see other towns in a position we know too well.”
